Jeff Persels – författare

Feces, urine, flatus, phlegm, vomitus - unlike ourselves, our most educated forebears did not disdain these functions, and, further, they employed scatological references in all manner of works. This collection of essays was provoked by what its editors considered to be a curious lacuna: the relative academic neglect of the copious and ubiquitous scatological rhetoric of Early Modern Europe, here broadly defined as the representation of the process and product of elimination of the body's waste products. The contributors to this volume examine the many forms and functions of scatology as literary and artistic trope, and reconsider this last taboo in the context of Early Modern European expression. They address unflinchingly both the objective reality of the scatological as part and parcel of material culture - inescapably a much larger part, a much heavier parcel then than now - and the subjective experience of that reality among contemporaries.

Feces, urine, flatus, phlegm, vomitus - unlike ourselves, our most educated forebears did not disdain these functions, and, further, they employed scatological references in all manner of works. This collection of essays was provoked by what its editors considered to be a curious lacuna: the relative academic neglect of the copious and ubiquitous scatological rhetoric of Early Modern Europe, here broadly defined as the representation of the process and product of elimination of the body's waste products. The contributors to this volume examine the many forms and functions of scatology as literary and artistic trope, and reconsider this last taboo in the context of Early Modern European expression. They address unflinchingly both the objective reality of the scatological as part and parcel of material culture - inescapably a much larger part, a much heavier parcel then than now - and the subjective experience of that reality among contemporaries.

Itineraries in French Renaissance Literature brings together a full score of essays by established and rising American-based scholars of the early modern. Arranged according to five themes or genres: Tales and their Tellers, Poets and Poetry, Religious Controversy, Montaigne, and Knowledge Networks, they offer both fresh perspectives on canonical authors such as Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais, Montaigne, Marot, Labé, and Hélisenne de Crenne, as well as original interpretations of less familiar works of sixteenth-century moment: confessional polemics, emblems, cartography, geomancy, epigraphy, bibliophilism and even ichthyology. Inspired by and gathered together here to honor the eclectic career of Mary B. McKinley, this anthology integrates many of the most pertinent topics and contemporary approaches of early modern French scholarly inquiry. Contributors are: Pascale Barthe, Leah L. Chang, Edwin M. Duval, Gary Ferguson, George Hoffmann, Robert J. Hudson, Karen Simroth James, Scott D. Juall, Virginia Krause, Kathleen Long, Stephen Murphy, Corinne Noirot, Jeff Persels, Bernd Renner, Nicolas Russell, Nicholas Shangler, Cynthia Skenazi, Kendall Tarte, Cara Welch, and Cathy Yandell.